The military correspondance of Field-Marshal Sir William Robertson, chief of the Imperial General Staff, December 1915-February 1918

About this book

Field-Marshal Sir William Robertson, Britain's first field-marshal to advance from the ranks, served as Chief of the Imperial General Staff from December 1915 to February 1918. Both his powers and responsibilities were without precedent in British military annals. Given virtual autonomy within the War Office, he served as the supreme strategic advisor to the government during the planning and execution of the controversial Somme and Passchendaele offensives, battles the scale and violence of which were unparalleled in British history. Other British theatres in the global conflict, especially the Balkans and Palestine, and relations with Britain's allies also commanded his close attention. 'I have to deal with five commanders-in-chief abroad, one at home, and about a dozen Allies, and to conduct my business with my Head Quarters within three-hundred yards of the seat of political government. It is a task which no man in the world, to my knowledge, has ever attempted before, and I hope that no other man will ever have to attempt it, ' he once wrote. Particular care has been devoted to Robertson's private and secret communications with political leaders, the king, newspaper proprietors and editors, and his fellow senior officers. Robertson's numerous communications with Haig, which constitute a substantial part of his correspondence, are very revealing of his relationship with the Commander-in-Chief of the BEF. The letters and telegrams in this volume are enlightening also on the often bitter conflicts between the civil and military authorities over manpower questions, the coordination of Allied military planning, and British grand strategy. That Robertson's private views of his civilian superiors as reflected in his correspondence were extremely censorious is not surprising, given the mutual distrust and hostility that usually existed between British politicians, especially Lloyd George and his supporters, and senior army officers. Roughly sixty per cent of the documents in this volume are from the Robertson Papers deposited at the Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives King's College London. Other manuscript collections searched for Robertson's correspondence include the papers of Haig, Asquith, Curzon, Milner, Archibald Murray, George V, Lloyd George, Henry Wilson, Northcliffe and Gwynne.